The Singapore tycoon Ong Beng Seng, who owns Four Seasons resorts in Bali, Singapore and the Maldives, won government approval to build the brand’s first hotel in the Malaysian capital after a 17-month wait.

Ong will join with a Malaysian sultan and CapitaLand to build the 1.5 billion ringgit, or US$427 million, hotel and apartment complex in Kuala Lumpur, S.A. Raju, Venus Assets executive director, said in an interview. Venus is owned by Ong, the controlling shareholder of the Singapore-based Hotel Properties, Southeast Asia’s second-largest hotelier by market value.

The project, next to the Petronas Twin Towers, the world’s second-tallest building, marks the biggest investment in Malaysia’s hospitality industry this year as a surge in tourist arrivals filled rooms, possibly pushing rates to a record in 2007. The country counts on tourism for about 6 percent of its gross domestic product.

“Never underestimate the power of the brand,” said Joyce. Chang, the principal of C-Hospitality Consulting a hotel consultant firm in Kuala Lumpur. The Four Seasons is an “international name with prestige, and this is very good for Malaysia’s tourism industry.”

Ong’s two-tower project has been revised with the initial 72-story condominium reduced to 60 floors, while the hotel tower remains at 38 stories, Raju said in an interview published in Singapore.

The Four Seasons development will include 200 hotel rooms, 50 serviced apartments and 173 condominium units, he said.

Ong bought his 2.6-acre Kuala Lumpur site in 2003 from the late Singapore billionaire Khoo Teck Puat for 90 million ringgit, or 785 ringgit a square foot. The development, through Venus, would be the fifth Four Seasons property for Ong. His Hotel Properties owns four of the brand’s hotels.

Hotel Properties is also building a Hard Rock hotel at a beach in Malaysia’s Negeri Sembilan state, and another in Penang state. The new hotels will add to the company’s five other properties in Malaysia, including three under the Concorde brand.

Venus, the owner and developer of the hotel project, is owned by Ong and his associates. Its chairman is Syed Yusof Nasir, who handles the business interests of Sharafuddin Idris Shah, ruler of Malaysia’s richest state of Selangor.

Occupancy at the 900 hotels in and around Kuala Lumpur may rise to 72 percent in 2007, boosting average room rates to a record 250 ringgit a day, said Ivo Nekvapil, vice president of the Malaysian Association of Hotels. Last year, 68 percent of the rooms were filled at an average of 222 ringgit.

Still, hotel room rates in Malaysia are lower than those in Singapore, Hong Kong and Thailand, which may deter other luxury brands from investing in the country because of lower returns, said C-Hospitality’s Chang. Average hotel room rates are lower by as much as 75 percent compared with the region, Nekvapil said.

That may change as Malaysia draws more tourists. The government aims to attract a record 20.1 million visitors this year with its first yearlong tourism promotion in 13 years. Arrivals rose 6.8 percent to 17.5 million in 2006 from a year earlier, according to Tourism Malaysia’s Web site.

On March 1, the Saudi billionaire Prince Alwaleed bin Talal’s Kingdom Hotel Investments said it bought the Four Seasons Hotel in the Malaysian resort island of Langkawi for $114 million. The company will invest another $35 million by the end of 2008 to add suites and villas to the luxury beachside development.

“We need more brand hotels such as Four Seasons to attract more tourists,” said Nekvapil. “We’re missing a few.”